in even the most benign of sacrifices, some living thing was destroyed. According to the scholars of Hebrew religious practice, the destruction of grain or animal was meant to signal the sacrificer’s offering and rending of himself. The offerer says, in effect, that what is happening to this animal—as in the case of the Abramic sacrifice we have been considering—should happen to me if I fall out of friendship with God; or, as this animal’s lifeblood is poured out, so I symbolically pour out my own life in devotion and thanksgiving.
